Because of its wide cultivation, the origins of garlic are not fully certain. It is related to onions and lilies, and cultivated in the same manner as the shallot. The domesticated garlic plant does not produce seeds, but is grown from bulbs. These bulbs, called “cloves” by cooks, are the part of the plant most commonly eaten, though some cooks also use the early spring shoots. These shoots are often pickled in Russia and states of the Caucasus and eaten as an appetizer. A common error of beginning cooks is to misinterpret the word “clove” as meaning the entire garlic head (naturally occurring cluster of cloves, depending on the species) rather than one of its segments, thereby wildly exaggerating the amount of garlic in a recipe.

Garlic is most often used as a seasoning or a condiment. When crushed or finely chopped it yields allicin, a powerful antibiotic and anti-fungal compound (phytoncide). It also contains alliin, ajoene, enzymes, vitamin B, minerals, and flavonoids.

Garlic is widely used in many forms of cooking for its strong flavor, which is considered to enhance many other flavors. Depending on the form of cooking and the desired result, the flavor is either mellow or intense. It is often paired with onion and tomato.

In culinary preparation, it is necessary to remove the parchment-like skin from individual cloves before chopping. Lightly crushing the cloves with the ball of the hand or flat of a knife makes this job much easier.

When eaten in quantity, garlic may be strongly evident in the diner’s sweat and breath the following day. This is because garlic’s strong smelling sulfur compounds are metabolized forming allyl methyl sulfide. Allyl methyl sulfide (AMS) cannot be digested and is passed into the blood. It is carried to the lungs and the skin where it is excreted. Since digestion takes several hours, and release of AMS several hours more, the effect of eating garlic may be present for a long time.

The well-known phenomenon of “garlic breath” is alleged to be alleviated by eating fresh parsley. This is therefore included in many garlic recipes. However since garlic breath results mainly from digestive processes placing compounds such as AMS in the blood, and AMS is then released through the lungs over the course of many hours, eating parsley is at best a temporary fix. Because of its strong odor, garlic is sometimes called the “stinking rose”.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Garlic”.